NEW OWNERS CLINIC

[FARFINATOR]

Lately, I have read many of your topics discussing method for maintaining, generating growth and increased C.S.I. amoung our customer base.
Many years ago I worked as a service advisor for a medium sized Honda dealer who executed a very succesful new owners clinic program. It involved the following basic structure:
1. Educate the customer. Take control of their expectations with respect to the vehicle, the warranty and the dealership. C.S.I. is a perception of how well the customer judges your performance as measured by their preconceived expectations. If you govern those expectations, it stands to reason you are more likely to satisfy them.
2. Each customer was furnished with the dealership's own service book, separate from the factories. It itemized the dealer's recommended maintainance and justified deviation from the factory's based on driving conditions and the factory's "minimum" standards. A complete maintenance book "properly stamped" was assigned a "trade in value" ($500 at that time)thus incentivising both the lease and purchase client to adhere to the schedule, incentivize return sales customers and optimize the probability of exceptional quality trade-ins for resale.
3. A tiered labor rate was devised. It boosted the labor rate for non-purchase clients by 10%, affording the sales force with and additional selling tool and the purchase customer the sense of preferencial treatment.
4.The customers were invited into the shop, where every model was on display and the fundamentals of major maintenance items was discussed(i.e services,t-belt,brakes etc.) This proved invaluable to may novice female clients.
I have never been able to sell this program to another store. It requires cooperation from ALL departments and obviously represents a fair investment in time to organize and coordinate. But, WOW it sure worked well there. Those customers were like drones coming in for the services. Reminder systems were all but unnecessary. And this store consistantly achieved the Presidents award time and time again.
My question: Is this an isolated once in a lifetime experience? Has anyone had similar success with such a program and if so how were you able to sell it to the team? Granted it seems like a lot of effort, but the payoff was tremendous, certainly more than any discount menu system or reminder program I've ever seen produce.

[RickW]

The only one I have seen run successfully was done by Saturn when they first came on line. I've been in the business since Apr92. We tried several of these types of programs when I was at a Chev store, but with limited success.

[GaryE]

We have a very successful new owner's car clinic. We call it "Right from the Start".
All departments have to go with it. The sales dept. has to bring in the customers. The service and parts centers put the rest together. We hold in in our shop and surround the customers with the types of cars they purchased. The customers meet our GM or dealer principal, the parts manager, service manager, and othe parts and service personnel - ESPECIALLY the Cashier. We give a spiel on our service hours, appointments, coupon use, service specials, menus, CSI, use of genuine parts, body parts, etc. We actually show them where the jack is in their vehicle and show them where to put it under the car.
We give a coupon for free touch up paint, 3000 maintenence, and an elegant coffee mug with our phone number on it. We feed them ( subway sandwiches, fried chicken, wings ). We give them a coupon for $500 trade in if they get all their maintenences done here. We especially advertise the birddogs we give out if they send us a new or used car customer.
The results - We get about 30% new car sales customer participation. Big increase in CSI, huge increase in car sales. We track where our customers heard about us and we get an unbeleavable 75% referrals. (We have one customer that has referred 17 sales to us in one year. She is $1700 richer.)

Hints - have a couple of TV's on while customers are coming in with tapes of the commercials of your cars on them. Include props - old parts, new parts, posters and an easel with a drawing pad. Include humor - Click and Clack type of stuff.

Good Luck!

[Scottbob]

As a Service Director I coordinated many new car owner seminars and clinics over the years and one of the key elements were a strong commitment and participation from all departments. It is also important to make sure it has elements that are interactive. Like how to jack the car up properly, my shop forman would use a piece of test equipment to demo the ABS pulse on the brake pedal so it wouldn't be a foreign experience the first time they feel it. You get the idea. And of course food is a good reward for their participation. The end result when properly excecuted was higher CSI and stronger customer loyalty with these customers. IT IS WELL WORTH THE EFFORT!
Scottbob-Seattle

[cdtemple]

As many have mentioned the key to the most successful clinics rely on complete participation. Having worked at a metro dealership where the dealer involved himself as well as all the managers in at least the intro portion I can tell you that it is not hard to hit almost 40% of our customers.We would typically get 50 to 70 customers out to a clinic. Currently I work at a smaller dealership where the dealer wants the clinics done, as does GM, but has no personal interest and as a resault we get less then 10% participation. Small size does have some advantages. In this rural dealership we actually get to do abs and traction control demos in the parking lot. If you have enough parking lot you can even demo swerving and braking. Its a head turner that even gets coverage in the local rag. The other attention getter is saving those warranty air bags and setting one off at the end of the show to explain the operation and to help dispell air bag phobia